


I Dreamt Us From Dirt and Feathers

by JustabookjunkieIneednohelp



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: AU, Adam Parrish is Bad at Feelings, Adam's hands, Angry Kissing, Angst with a Happy Ending, Child Abuse, Drunk Blow Jobs, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gansey the mom, Hate Sex, Jealousy, Love/Hate, M/M, Multiple Relationships, Physical Abuse, Ronan Lynch is Bad at Feelings, Ronan's tatoo, Shameless Smut, Shower Sex, Slow Burn, jerking off
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 05:36:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14664384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustabookjunkieIneednohelp/pseuds/JustabookjunkieIneednohelp
Summary: Blue decides Adam needs to loosen up. What better way then to break into the warehouse on the edge of town? A warehouse that belongs to the most obnoxious raven boys of all raven boys.OrWhen Gansey told Ronan to try being slightly more social, he didn't consider letting two kids their age break into their warehouse an option...*ON HAITUS





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ahhh guys, I'm so excited for this. I have such big plans. Comments, kudos and criticisms welcome. Stick with me and enjoy. <3 
> 
> *Explicit mentions of abuse*

He could say the day had felt off from the beginning: the wind drier; brittle, the sky weeping; a pathetic fallacy, the blades of grass hissing; a warning. But it hadn't. In fact Adam had awoken to a pungent, humid morning, the uncomfortable and thick air smothering Henrietta. The sun shining weakly through the pregnant, pallid sky. To anyone else a day like today was hell, like the sleepy little town was encased under a glass covering, fogging it up, suffocating it.

But to Adam, the sky was dirt brown: soft and nostalgic. It was heavy with the promise of a storm: rushing, thunderous, chaotic. The air so different from the usually harsh glare of summer, the blistering heat that had crawled under his flesh, taking refuge on his skin. 

Few as they were, when these days came by, Adam didn't merely survive, he lived. Thrived where the air was full of possibility. This atmosphere that demanded to be known, it reminded Adam of everything he wanted, needed to become: someone with strength, someone people wouldn't dismiss at a first glance, may be even someone they respected. It wasn't that Adam wanted the quick and superficial fame many his age dreamed off, or already had because of money. He just wanted to be someone without the dirt under his fingernails and the grease on his skin. That was the worst part of living in Henrietta, Adam was just another poor boy working late. Just another piece of trailer trash. Just another boy under the fists of someone stronger. Adam was sick of it.

The need to be someone else itched his mind, scratched at his skin, rattled his lungs. Adam couldn't stand it.

Waking up to trembling silence of small trailer, the stale air thin with tension, with the expectation of violence. To his mothers vacant eyes and ramrod posture, as she sat each morning on the tattered sofa looking out of the murky glass they called a window, fingertips pressed white as pushed against the surface: not looking for escape, but eyes empty. Just empty.

When Adam was younger he'd tried to coax her into bed, into a more comfortable position, into his life. It was the few times she had spoken to him.

"Leave me alone Alan. Don't look at me like that - "

And the first of many times when she hadn't said anything.

"You son of a bitch, hadn't I told you to the hell out already?"

A fist flashed. A head cracked. A boy fell. The hits rained down.  
One,  
two,  
three bones snapped.

Adam was dumped outside the trailer and it was only as the midmorning sun glared the next day that he desperate enough to crawl out of the up hurled contents of his stomach, the rancid puddle of his cowardice. Sobbing, staggering, he reach the boundary of rusted wire to his neighbour's. He had begged that day, begged from one door to the next that kept closing on him with eyes pooling with disgust and irritation and pity, but not enough to help. Never enough.

Someone did eventually help him, an elderly woman with soft hands and a raspy voice on the outskirts of his patch of trailers: a traveller.

It was the day Adam last begged. The day he learnt a great many things. The day the bleak truth bared it's ageless fangs and sunk into his veins, leeching.

Never again would Adam beg. Never again at the mercy of another. Never again reliant, or hopeful of others. Never again would he rest for even a second, not before he had enough money, enough knowledge to leave. To finally leave.

It was the day Adam realised this indeed was a place for leaving. Only Adam would be leaving alone.

And so eleven years later, he was working in Boyd's, seventeen and so close to leaving. He had left his mockery of a home and would soon leave this town. To begin living. Finally, finally living. 

Adam was spending the muggy afternoon, underneath the hood of a hideously coloured Camaro, tangerine, as if the notoriety of the driver wasn't enough. Aglionby needed to be asserted in every gesture and every object.

The auto shop was fairly big, the work grueling, but with the a nicer boss than his other job in the factory. Adam was currently working five, because it was summer and the phrase time is money applied quiet literally to his life. The auto shop and the factory were the main jobs, he had also picked up an extra two hour shift at the factory, as well as working in a vintage shop owner by Blue's family - a friend.

The shop whimsical and alluring, selling items from pots to dream catchers to guitars to books. It seemed ensconced with the very essence of Blue's household: a little eccentric, a little captivating, a little dangerous. It was the place with the least menial work, all he had to do was "stand there and look devastatingly pretty" according to Blue. Adam was not blind, he knew he wasn't bad looking, but devastatingly pretty was not how he'd describe himself. He was good looking, fine at best.

A tired smile tugged at his lips, as he thought of the time he had casually teased Blue of being a liar, a flattering liar. Blue being Blue had pursed her lips and furrowed her brow, contemplating if Adam really thought so - he did - and then proceeded over the next week to compile a tally of customers who thought of Adam as such, when he was elsewhere occupied, not only in the Ley Line, but Nino's where she also worked. Needless to say Adam's face had flamed when Blue slapped the parchment in front of him.

"Blue!" He'd hissed, ears burning.

"Next time, just accept I'm right." She'd smirked, slipping behind the counter to pin on her employee name tag. 

Leaving Adam to wallow in his mortification, but despite the heat crawling up his neck, Adam had felt a flicker. Like a bubble: effervescent, fragile. So plainly happy he had been for the fact that she had done this for him and humiliating as it was, Blue knew him. Knew him enough to know that without empirical proof, Adam never would have believed it to be true.

Devastatingly pretty.  
Perhaps he was.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys, I had originally planned for the break in to take place this chapter, but I don't want to force it, so it changed. Don't worry though, it'll definitely happen in the next one.
> 
> Plus I also will start uploaded more regularly. This fic every two days and the Males one weekly, because summer holidays! 
> 
> Enjoy. =)

It had been a week, still the owner of the tangerine contraption hadn't shown. Maybe this was a quick way to dispose of it. Afterall, it wasn't as if it would be the first time a raven boy had shown blatant disregard for the norms the rest of Henrietta followed. Norms such as "using the correct establishment for correct service and commodities". A line he had very much borrowed from Blue who had used it to shut down another dim witted soul who tried to order more than pizza at Nino's. Laughing to himself, Adam said as much to Blue, who was sprawled over the said contraption. 

"Maybe", she hummed, a tanned leg swinging off the roof, a faint smirk playing on her lips. Because this was Blue, sitting on the hood wouldn't do. Instead she lay sprawled across the top of the Camaro, one leg folded up in a triangle, the other swinging precariously close to the window as she lay on her back, arms splayed dramatically in a pose of long suffering. The cause of it the heat or Adam, he couldn't decifer. She had come to spend lunch with Adam, Blue claimed, as he insisted on being so unavailable according to Blue. Which wasn't his fault, they both knew and pretended otherwise, much to her chagrin.

And of course to get away from the infamous prattling idiots. She worked in Nino's, which looked like would be a respite for the poor, with it's tacky furniture, sticky booths and greasy pizza, but was a playground for the rich, spoilt and entitled: thus the raven boys, also the aforementioned idiots.

Adam only tracked the bead of sweat down Blue's calf, waiting for whatever Blue wanted to say. The silence was a coiled one, one filled with the impending query; poised, and Adam was yet to find if it was to be a poisonous type of animal, one that which he could not outrun. 

As pretty as Blue was, most of the time her demeanour was anything but: unapologetically Blue, he liked to think of it. Eccentric, indignant, enflammble: like a firework's wick always aflame. He loved her for it. Once even more than a friend, a silly crush for a boy with nothing. Time had passed since then, but Adam was not blind. Aesthetically Blue was attractive, with her chopped pixie cut, held back with pins, looking less hairstyle and more warning, her short stature and toned, brown limbs, that spoke less of hours in the sun and more of genetic disposition. She had eyes the colour of tilled soil: rich and dark, which always carried a glint of some sort of mischief, even though she claimed to be sensible. Even her bizzare outfits were endearing, today's ensemble being a scuffed jean dungaree over a black ripped net shirt, over a slightly less ripped white t-shirt.

But lately, Adam had been more interested in stubble than soft curves, granted it didn't stop him from appreciating both.

"- loosen up."

"Hmmm? " it was Adam's turn to hum distracted.

"Adam!"

Blue snapped jerking upright, "I'm serious. You never have fun. We're doing it."

"Wait, what? I'm confused."

It was this moment Adam would remember later, the sunlight streaming a solid wave of golden over the concrete shop floor, falling just shy of the Camaro's dusty tires. Blue's spine ram rod straight, head cocked: predatory, eyes twinkling with sunlight and mischief, a small, coy tilt to her lips, as her hands pressed flat against the roof of the Camaro; like she would push off and fly away any second.

The moment felt electric.

"You'll see," she remarked.

Deftly jumping off the car and strolling out of Boyd's, a spring to her step, a dismissive wave to Adam.

Adam knew only trouble would echo her retreating footsteps, but Adam couldn't help his pulse jumping in excitement. He would surely regret this, he thought as he dusted off his threadbare, faded-blue jeans,but he always ended up enjoying Blue's schemes.

Turning to attend the newest costumer - a charcoal grey BMW. Adam grinned.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sitting in Latin, Adam wasn't sure if he heard right. Surely the teacher hadn't said what he had heard: 2 hours every evening, until the end of the year, spent with a partner going over extra modules to gain credit; necessary Mr. Gray had said. He couldn't - his plans - no. Janice would not make allowances, she had made that clear. Because of this, Adam would have to quit his factory job. How pathetic that he should mourn leaving the suffocating, damp walls; the sweltering, cramped assembly lines; the aching, monotonous nights. But mourn be did. Angrily so.  
Red stained Adam's vision, his pulse pounding in his good ear. The silence in his other more deafening for it. Gritting his teeth, he forced his hands to relax from their strangling grip of the oak desk. As if he could strangle wood. The moaning and boisterous teasing of the other boys grating in his ear drum, like chalk on a board. They didn't need to make these choices. They didn't even care. They were complaining, as if wrenching themselves from a party, a car, an ominous blunt was unfathomably difficult. Strenuous.

Bristling, Adam stood waiting as the bell rang, slowly packing his books away with hand quivering with rage, as his classmates hollered and filtered out. Calm, he needed to be calm. He knew what rage lead to. He would not walk that path. Breathing slowly, Adam concentrating on lowering his heart beat, until his first instinct wasn't to rip his hair from his scalp. Dissecting the anger, Adam had learnt, helped.

Heaving a sharp sigh, Adam slung the bag over his shoulder and made h is way to his next class.

If Adam hadn't been so angry, so distracted he would have seen a lingering presence in the room. Dark clothes, razor frown and piercing eyes watching him leave. New might even have noticed a strange flicker in them; almost longing as they watched him leave. At odds with the figure's impassive demeanour.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Adam, do you really even need the job? 

It had been quiet a while since Adam had turned up at Blue's doorstep, the sun starting behind him: a blood red orb, sillohetting the sleepy street. He had come here right after he had quit, Adam knew the longer he put it off, the greater his rage would grow. So now he say on a too small bed in Blue's too small room: as cramped as his, though decidedly less desolate looking. In fact it looked cosy, even with the strewn leafy collages, a whole wall covered in various sized dream catchers, open wardrobe door slung with the creations Blue called clothes and a smattering of inexplicable things: a feathery twig; a sandy, broken teacup; a pile of customized pocketknives.

It was perhaps the filtered gold rays of the dying sun, or the lazily swirling dust motes, or the angry girl herself. Adam's own fury rose it's hackles in response.

"Of course I need it." Adam spat, "I get you're not as poor as me, but honestly Blue, don't act so naive. I need the job, the money to leave, to make sure I eat and pay rent."

Scoffing, Blue crossed her legs.

"Adam, I'll say this once and only once and nicely because you clearly aren't thinking straight."

Adam opened his mouth to argue but was silenced by the hand Blue held up, fine.  
"No Adam, you don't need the job. Yes you need the other two, to eat, pay bills, for rent. But you want the third job to save as much money as you can, so you can leave as fast as you can."

Shame curled in Adamst stomach at the hurt that flashed on her eyes, but he would not feel guilty, he told himself. Would. Not.

"And that's fine Adam, I love you and I will miss you, but I know why you want, need to do this. But what I won't stand for, is you killing yourself to get there. You work yourself to the bone to get to college, then you'll work yourself to the bone to stay there and then you'll work yourself to the bone to get a job and prosper there. The reslove and determination is great, but Adam you need to chill out, enjoy life a bit."

Her brown eyes seem to soften, but Blue's voice was firm: "It'll be gone too soon Adam, too soon. Have fun, live. You're out Adam, you left. Stop running."

Reaching out, Blue cradled Adam's head in her thin shoukders, wrapping her arms around him in a hug as if to emphasise her point despite his stif posture. Fierce and protective, she did not believe he was a broken thing to be protected, she would not treat him as one.

Adam realised Blue was right, along the way he had never tried, never expected to have fun. To enjoy life. It was merely a trial to face with grim determination, he was out and he had left of his own accord. Packed his bags, told his sorry excuse of a father he was leaving. He had receive a few bruises and a permanently deafened ear for his trouble, but he had gotten out. On his terms, with a bitter price. But he had. Shuddering a breath against Blue's shoulder, he held her back; arms clinging onto her strong frame.

Digging his forehead into her shoulder Adam acquiesced: "Yeah, yeah, you are right. God am I always such a jerk?"

Breathing out a delighted laugh, Blue muttered, "Only when you aren't fed and walked properly."

Adam's shoulder shook with silent laughter, as he pulled away a silver gleam in his eyes, "You're the unleashed chuwawa Blue." He answered, hands up raised against the oncoming onslaught.

As expected Blue's nostrils flared in indignation. "Adam Ethan Parrish."  
But when Blue plunged into her tirade, Adam just smiled: a slow satisfied thing. He would be an imbecile if he didn't spend as much time as he could with Blue before he left. She was his best friend. His admittedly sensible best friend.

Thinking of sensible..

"What was your idea anyway?"

Blue's answering grin was nothing short of terrifying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the support, kudos, comments and criticism is appreciated greatly. <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know it's the third day, but I made the chapter longer to make up for it. Forgive me. =)
> 
> They finally break in!
> 
> Next up load is definitely Saturday. I've already started that chapter.

Adam was severely debating his life choices and each intricate turn he had taken that had inevitably lead here. And by here he meant: precariously balanced on a support beam, crouched awkwardly, still reaching for the next handhold, right arm raised, left knuckles clenched to the splintered, thick slab of timber under his bare feet; sand coloured stray locks tickling his cheek while he stared at a bored looking boy about his age, straddling a rafter partially hidden in the triangle nook of the warehouse's roof. 

That's where the similarities ended. The word boy certainly didn't fit. With his harsh cheekbones, shaved head, squared shoulders deceptively loosened, even his nose: a little crooked looked cruel, mocking. Anyone who looked at him would see the predator prowling underneath his skin; irrelevant of circumstance, or experience, or age. Adam was inexplicably intrigued; regrettably so. Both boys unabashedly continued a silent vigil of the other, neither moving. Adam was the one trespassing, literally hanging form the ceiling, yet he was the one confused as he stared at the enigma in front of him, for that was what the other was.

The moonlight seemed to caress his form, draping lazily over his bare arms: defined, bracing his weight on the mockery of a sill behind him, a cog in the structure of the murky glass square behind him. Wayward dust motes swirled in the halo of pale moonlight above the boy's head. Surrounded by shadows, dust and the ruin of girders; strewn pieces of winking green glass. He was a fallen angel, a demon. The irreverent prince of hell.

Adam watched as his eyes swirled, an ocean, the storm blue of a sea at war with itself, the land and the sky. They traced Adam's form, indolently, without so much as a flicker of feeling registering. His pale, sharp face blank. As his eyes fell back to Adam's own, Adam's breath seemed to hitch under the intensity of that gaze. Someone who saw too much, felt too much, felt it too acutely. People like him were dangerous. Adam should know. Adam didn't know what he was expecting, this certainly weren't your usual first acquaintance, but it wasn't an amused, taunting half-smirk the guy levelled on him.

Sweeping an unimpressed scan in return, Adam considered his options, mouth tightening. Message sent he thought as Adam caught a flash of something like interest ripple across the other boy's features: There and then gone, so fast that someone less perceptive than Adam may have missed it. Adam himself didn't know what it meant, only knew that it was.

Slowly bringing down his hand, Adam cocked his head.

"Didn't expect to see you here."

Incogrously, the boy laughed. Like the cackling from a murder of crows. You could cut yourself and bleed to a slow, agonising death in seconds on it.  
The corner of Adam's lips quirked up crookedly.

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Staring up at the looming warehouse, Adam cast a disbelieving glance towards Blue.

"You plan to get in there by yourself?"

Not that Adam was skeptic of Blue's breaking in skills, but he was skeptic of Blue's breaking in skills. Blue's "thrilling scheme to loosen Adam up and live a lot", because who in their right mind only wants to live a little Adam? entailed breaking into the almost collapsing warehouse a few miles out of town. All pesky details had been personally smoothed out by Blue heself and Adam was sure the chips that hadn't slipped seamlessly into the slots she had prescribed were wrangled and hammered into shape. Blue was nothing if not persistent. Still he saw no logical way they could break in and not get caught. The building was in various states of ruin, it had to be locked up for public safety.

Despite it's current state Adam couldn't deny the tug he felt towards it, the coalition of wood and metal and stone had a bedraggled aiir of charm. The grey of bricks ranged from oily black to the softest ash in places, the roof a pyramid covering of copper, blazing a dull russet: the shadowed brother to the nearly set sun beyond. A passionate smear against the velvet night let out of it's cage. Stars strewn like a child king 's over spilled trunk of jewels across the sky. Even it's overgrown population of foliage, all manners of green from absinthe green like summer grass to pine green like the darkened leaves in a forest sent a burst of familiarity in Adam. Somehow it felt like a place that could be home. 

"Come on." Blue winked, striding up the car park they stood in.  
So Adam followed as Blue strolled right up to the massive front door, because of course she did. Dropping her rucksack she rummaged through, picking out a curious object. It looked like a screw driver, but seemed longer and with multiple sharp ends.

"Did you buy a lock pick?" Adam queried amused. As he scanned the door and their surroundings, gaze landing on Blue. The frowning girl, irritated, brushed away a pointy strand of hair that had come undone from the twin buns gathered on the top of her head . They too looked prickly. Like the customised chocolate designs of a rabid faerie.

"No, don't be slow Adam. I borrowed the viper's." she explained, chiding.

Scoffing Adam affirmed: "Orla?"

Blue only waved a hand in response as if to say, who else?  
After a few moments a click echoed through the air, followed by Blue's exhilarated grin, mirroring Adam's own. Quietly they both slipped inside. Adam's pulse thundered in his veins, they had always been people who followed rules, consequences weren't kind to those without money in Henrietta, in the world. Doing this made Adam feel dangerous, brave, giddy. He was a bubble of thrill, constantly bursting. And he had founding popping to be the best part.  
Incongrously he felt the urge to laugh. So he did.

It was a breathless delighted sound: carefree and amiable.

He expected Blue to reprimand him, or at least glower, but she only twirled around walking backwards, eyes blazing and laughed right along with him. A loud untethered thing. Their happiness echoed back tenfold in the cavernous space. They were young, they were free, they were invincible. Immortal. 

Both felons weaved through the discarded, dusty equipment: rusted and abandoned. Blue and Adam trailed their hands over the cool metal surfaces leaving a clear trail in the otherwise dirty room. It seemed to go on forever. The air not as stagnant as Adam would think considering the warehouse had been closed since before Adam was even born. 

"Adam! There's a staircase."

"Is it safe?"

"As life." Blue called dismissively, at least that's what Adam thought. He couldn't really tell as her voice and footsteps seem to be fading away. It should have irritated Adam, but tonight there was certainly no sensible Blue, or Adam. They had left those skins behind.

Adam just reached the top step, finding Blue crouched below another lock in another door: dark, old and wooden, before he heard a snick and Blue's triumphant ha! He was sure they could have just given the door a firm nudge and the lock would have splintered open. Relaying this sentiment to his prickly companion, Adam earned himself a withering stare, as Blue pushed open the entrance without looking. 

"Oh" the word slipped out of Adam when he took in the room beyond the threshold.

Adam's first thought was: it seems perhaps this particular abandoned warehouse missed the memo on abandoned. 

His second thought was: a squatter of some sort had occupied the premise.

His third thought was: the squatter seemed to be of the obsessively educated sorts.

For the sight that greeted him was not of molding floorboards and a forgotten building. If anything this place seemed to be found. Inhabited to the point of excess. Every free surface was covered in precarious stacks of tomes. Most looked read judging from the multiple post it bookmarks in them. It was the aftermath of a scholar, a voracious person; harried, determined in his quest for knowledge. There were even a few open books fluttering in the breeze the opened door let through. Everything in this room seemed the work of a creature hungry. The wall to his left didn't seem to be a wall at all, but a window. The glass gleaming in the moonlight, the sky beyond large and present. A pallet of indigo, blue and the pink of dusk just going, or dawn just emerging. The stars plenty. The moment full. Pressing against the transparent material, as if the night would spill onto the wooden floors, like a pool in a god's garden. It was towards that that Blue turned, her feet but a whisper on the floor, as she took it in. Eyes wide, lips parted, hand clutching her throat: it felt home, like something more. He could see the wonder, the yearning in her eyes as she laid her free palm against the glass. Adam was reminded of the actions of another woman in his life, much like her own, but Blue's eyes weren't empty. They were brimming with a longing so deep, Adam felt the pain reflecting like a shard in his own chest.

Turning, he left to explore further giving Blue her moment. As he wove through the room, careful not to step on anything, he saw a model of... Henrietta? It was. A miniature thing, conjoined from cereal boxes and cardboard if he was correct. It was painted, but a few walls seemed to be newly added, thus bare. A small, half full bottle of glue lay discarded on it's side next to a box of orange juice. It seemed incongruous, the type of thing he had seen children in his class drink when he was younger. A no name brand, with an aptly orange straw.

Looking over the palm sized church, Adam spied a mint plant on a cluttered desk. This room reminded him of Blue's, despite being triple in size, if not more. It was the bare bed, skeletal with a mattress and no sheets; the vintage phone on the desk, one that used the scrolling round wheel of buttons; the typewriter tucked in the corner of the room, spitting pages with words half formed, sentences muddled, the same question repeated down the page. Each one seemed purposeful. The whole space had the air of restless energy, an irreverence for order. The clear want for something, the need for the other. For something besides the mundane.  
Snapping out of his reprieve, Adam followed Blue as she walked to what turned out to be a kitchen/closet/bathroom. The cramped counter stacked with mismatched cups, mugs and glasses. Which wasn't something noteworthy if you looked past the fact that they were all stacked upside down bearing post it with a messy scrawl of Dick written on them. 

Huffing a laugh. Adam fingered the crumpled end of one. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly Blue plucked the words they both left unsaid from the air, giving them form.

"So" the word was drawn out, a hum with vowels and a consanant, leaning against a fridge covered with various magnets and a note in very neat writing. Not the same one as the post it notes then.

"We just committed a felony breaking into a very occupied warehouse."

"I've never heard of anyone living here." Adam replied.

"What do you want to do?"

"Well the sensible thing to do would be leave."

"But?"

Adam heard the smile in the query.

"Let's finish taking a look around, but don't mess anything up and then we leave." It was stupid, disrespectful even. The stakes were so much different now that they knew someone lived here, but Adam felt the same sensation he had when he first glimpsed the warehouse. This could be home. Distantly he knew it was ridiculous, a voice even seemed to iss. Don't be an imbecile. It was a very quiet voice.

Blue raised an eyebrow to extraordinary heights, to which Adam only shrugged, hands in pockets. Their combined laughter was tinted with an edge of hysteria.  
"You know what? The only place left to look is the door at the back of the room and the ceiling."

"What?" Adam frowned, unsure if he heard the girl staring up at him right. He even cast a confused glance up.

Scoffing, Blue took Adam's wrist in her dusty hands, leaving behind an echo of black prints on his tanned skin; freckled from the sun. It was only when she led him back to the main room did Adam comprehend. The ceiling was a patchwork of beams stretching up into the dark, one couldn't see the roof, especially as the night pooled over each crevice. Though the shadows seemed off in one corner: lighter. Perhaps due to a crack in the infrastructure, or a hole.

"How..." but Blue was already walking away.

Well, he had come this far and if one thing Adam was it was stubborn. He'd find a way up. Spinning in his heel, he searched. Adam's eyes snagged on a side drawer next to the window wall, which on further inspection was sturdy enough to climb and empty. Removing his tennis shoes: worn out and scuffed, then his socks: threadbare he stared at the furnishing. Adam decidedly did not play tennis, but they had been half price.

Clambering onto it elicited a worrying groan which Adam chose to ignore as he reached for a curtain pole lacking curtains fixed higher up on the wall. The ends attached to the corners of the room changing from window to brick wall. Said walls were not coated with cement as on the outside and after tugging on it a few times, Adam hauled himself up. Feet scrabbling for purchase on the wall, specifically the missing brick which seemed deliberately removed.Thanking the jobs that involved menial labour for his considerable upper body strength, he pulled himself on, toes curling around the chilled metal. He stood up to his full hieght, before leaning his head against the wall, gulping down air. Adam couldn't begin ponder what had possessed him to do this, this being not the most appropriate of places. Blowing out a breath. Adam chuckled to himself. He was living he thought, adenaline pumping through his body, echoing Blue's earlier statement. Scanning above Adam mapped out his route.

The lowest girder of the roof was within his reach, so Adam clutched at it's edges and repeated the maneuver he had just performed, coming to straddle the rough surface. He bent his head digging his forehead into the wood. What was he doing? The words rose unbidden like a branch in the fog of his mind, as he closed his eyes against the sheer improbability of the situation. Scaling the infrastructure of a potentially collapsing, occupied building. The thought was accompanied by a spasm of silent laughter: persistent. The kind you can't chase away. Adam realised he had laughed and smiled more this evening than in the past two weeks. Couldn't ever remember feeling so weightless. His heart empty and full. He felt so distinctly alive, so distinctly here, rooted in the now. No wonder people did crazy things. For the first time in a long time Adam was having fun. Insurmountable amounts of fun. He couldn't even worry about getting caught by the occupants, if anything it made the act all the more enticing. 

Collecting himself Adam sat up. Adam smiled. He climbed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of the Gansey gang in the next chapter. <3  
> Kudos, comments and criticisms are appreciated guys. Hope you liked. ;)


End file.
